My Bangla Desh Friend.

Recently, a friend of mine from the web introduced me, cyberly, to a young man from Bangla Desh and it brought to mind an incident from my days of being the ship's pianist on the Galileo, where I met Jim.

On the ship, there were distinct classes of workers. At the top of the rung were the authoritarian Greek officers -- most of them despicable pigs, but some of whom were warm and beautiful human beings. (They also lived on the upper cabin floor.)

Down in the bowels of the ship were makeshift cabins where I, and the other entertainers (British) and casino crew (Italian) lived. My cabin consisted of four pieces of sheet metal, a bunkbed, a sink, and an overhead lighting fixture.

My one precious piece of civilization was my typewriter. Yes, kids, this back in the 1980s, when the "Internet" was barely even an idea in the mind of a sci fi writer. I would write journals and lyrics and whatever came into my mind.

So, all of us who worked on the ship were isolated from the outside world.

The ship itself was a microcosm of the world, but with all the 70 nationalities distributed, high to low, in distinct classes. The only two Americans were myself and the (also gay) Greek-American cruise director named George Francis.

(Since I was unaware of how to act in a class system, knowing only the Dolly Partont on the Johnny Carson Show, on meeting the queen. "I'd say howdy and shake'r hand!", it never occurred to me to think of this Bangla Desh young man, very dark skinned with features that reminded me of Indian, but less aquiline, as anything other than just another dude.)

But, he and the other Bangla Desh cabin stewards slept 8 to a room. The room consisted of two sets of bunkbeds with a sink. Barely enough room for the sink (situated door the door, and between the bunks. It looked like slave quarters.

As I got to know him, I learned that he had a sister to whom he sent his money, and to whom he wrote long letters. He told me he was Muslim. He was one of the most gentle persons I ever met, like the folks back home in Buna, Texas.

So, I gave him permission to sit alone in my room and write letters whenever I wasn't around. To just use the room as a getaway.

Well, it was like a revolutionary act. There's even a name for it: egalitarianism. I'm no better than you and you're not better than me. A person's a person. For me, it was also tied up in Americanism, a concept that has gotten a lot of abuse.

Oh, I was so "You're a worker! A worker should be respected." It's grass roots country thinking. Fairness. Equality. Respect. It's so basic, I can't grasp any other way of thinking.

Soon, the Italians, who previously only cursed and abused the cabin steward, were finding themselves with a little rebel on their hands, standing up for himself.

It's funny how different real life can be from what we're told it's supposed to be. Letting someone use your desk to write letters, when you're not using your room, is some kind of revolutionary act?

How great is that.

Antarctic Diary Pt. 1

Go here and click on "high quality" for a sharper image.

How Boris Escaped A Concentration Camp

[Watch the video above of Boris and then read this story below, which describes what's in the video. I met him onboard the ship on this cruise.]

Boris sat back away, silhouetted by the slatted windows behind him. I could kind of half see him and half not, because the dim lights of this shipboard piano bar could not compete with the Mexican sun’s klieg-light intensity coming from the rippling water outside.

I could see that he was little and he was a senior. But his eyes flashed with this brilliant intelligence, and he had a little half smile permanently etched into the folds of his skin.

I had seen him the day before and had been introduced to him by Collin Salter, the amazing Australian pianist singer songwriter. And I remembered that Collin had said that he had played the piano the other night during one of his sets.

(I hadn't hung out yet in the piano bar. I’d been protecting everyone from my cold, which had turned my head into a overstuffed, dripping center of pain).

Boris asked me if I was planning to play right now. I told him I was but I didn’t want to disturb the room if he was enjoying the quiet. He asked me to play him a song. So, I played him “Nobody Leaves New York,” the title song from the new show we're working on. He seemed to really like it.

We then got into a discussion about musicals and he complained about rock music, asking me what I thought.

“Ah,” he sighed, in his German accent. “You probably come from that generation.”

“Actually,” I said. “Yes, I do love rock music, but rock music doesn’t work easily in a musical because it’s very difficult to get any dynamics in the course of the single song. But I think it’s been done successfully.” I told him how much I liked the orchestrations of “Spring Awakening” because they used a simple rock band set-up with a cello.

Suddenly, he sprang to life because he remembered a generational parallel to this argument. “I was a child prodigy in Germany on the piano. They would only teach us classical music.”

One day, a friend of mine said, “You should learn ‘Rhapsody in Blue.’ So I went back to my teachers and told them I wanted to learn ‘Rhapsody in Blue’ and they looked at me and said, ‘We will NEVER allow this in our school!’ and they gave more Bach.”

{Rhapsody in Blue, of course is the great Gershwin piece that first incorporated blues and jazz music into a classical setting. You might know it better as the Theme from United Airlines.)

His family was swept up during Kristallnacht and he was put into Buchenwald concentration camp.

And this is where the story gets amazing. His father was released because he employed a lot of people, but Boris remained in the concentration camp. So, at the last minute, they ran to the family doctor to see if he could help. The doctor was angry with them because they hadn’t come to him before.

Soon afterwards, Boris was called into the commandant’s office. There was a pile of fresh, new clothing for him. “You have friends in very high places,” the commandant said.

The next thing you know, he was released and told to go to America, for which he had already applied.

Years later, as his family read the stories about the war, they discovered that their family doctor was Adolf Hitler's personal physician, drafted into role of taking care of the Fuehrer.

After telling me this story, he sat down at the piano and played a Viennese Waltz.

“In America, I learned the popular songs of the day. I found them quite easy to play even though I’m from a Classical background." He still laughs over the Gershwin moment at school. But then he leaned over to me confidentially and said, “People today. They hear Rhapsody in Blue and they think they’re listening to classical music. What can you do?”

Unplugged.

Does this sport look painful to you?

From my cruise diary.

DECEMBER 25, 2007

Sometimes I have to unplug.

In an earlier time, that expression would have been utterly meaningless, but I have no doubt that sometimes even cave people felt overwhelmed with stress from their daily exertions and needed to clear their heads. But in this modern era where the little 11 year old girl at the Santa Claus arrival yesterday asked Santa for a cell phone--

[The ship’s rabbi just stopped by as I was writing that sentence sitting here in my breakfast nook I have dubbed The Office and asked me what I was doing. I told him I was having heavy thoughts. He asked me if they weighed at least 200 pounds.

He said it was too early to deal with heavy thoughts right now, too much of a time sink and I smiled at him and said that, to me, heavy thoughts are to be played with like a toy. Just for fun. His face brightened into a smile and he said, “Ah, now that’s a wise thought!”]

I am on a ship and have elected not to use their Internet connection. And it’s Christmas. And the 11 year old girl wanted a cell phone.

[Incidentally, two nights ago in the Christmas show (where Jim and I sang “Christmastime” from The Big Voice: God or Merman?), the rabbi did a comical routine featuring a Clement Moore-type poem, “The Night Before Hanukkah” featuring Sammy Claus. Okay, now back to the intended thread topic…]

[Did I just say thread topic? I’m starting to sound like Discussion Board. No. I'm not missing being Online. But I do love to get into flame wars. I don’t do it on purpose, but somehow I can’t resist putting my finger into the light socket. And I’m rambling because I could go down there to the dock and log in if I wanted to. Am I rambling again?]

Random: If you’re on a discussion board which consists mostly of one flame war after another and you’re tired of it, the solution is to implement the Bonus Round Flame War Tip: Never begin a sentence with the word “You,” The Corollary Rule is that it’s can’t be a rule. It has to be an agreement.

(Rules are greedy. They turn every discussion into a discussion about the rules.)

Steve at the Santa Claus Arrival.

It has now been four days.

I already know my inbox is overflowing, because all the email from my lists get piled in there every day, unfiltered. I don’t filter them because then I’d never open that folder. Better to let everything just pass through. But I’m testing myself to see how long I can stay completely offline.

“CODE ALPHA. PASSENGER 1905. CODE ALPHA. PASSENGER 1905.”

(That’s what just blasted over the sound system. We’re in Acapulco, by the way.

Docked.

Inches away from a cheap internet connection which I am not going to use.)

If I was going to go online, which I’m not, I would do it in a place like this because it’s too expensive to do it via the ship’s system.

It’s also good for me, creatively, to unplug. I have often wondered if I could get the same effect at home – like disconnecting completely for a week and living like a ghost, where nothing exists except Jim, food, the cats and the music.

The thought terrifies me.

No. This is fine. It’s Christmas.

And I have a book.

Atlantic Crossing '07 4: The Night Crew

Tirso previously asked me to write a song for him and the people who work on the night crew.

Atlantic Crossing '07 2: Dublin (2)

Part two of our Cross Atlantic cruise is also Part Two of our day in Dublin at the NewsTalk radio station with Fionn Davenport. This is the interview in which Jim defends Joan Crawford.

Atlantic Crossing '07 1: Dublin (1)

On our cruise across the Atlantic, we first hit Dublin, where Jim had set up a radio interview on a local NewsTalk show. This is the first of two parts. Our friend, producer Steven Rivellino, joined us.